MagicEngine v0.8 Copyright (c) 1997 David Michel ------------------------------- MagicEngine's Homepage Copyright (c) 1997 Bt Garner ---------------------------- http://joyce.eng.yale.edu/~bt/turbo/emu DISCLAIMER ---------- This program is provided as is. I take no responsibility for any damage or consequences directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, which may arise from using this program - YOU USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK! Files in this package --------------------- -FILE_ID.DIZ 141 bytes -REGISTER.TXT 1 160 bytes -README.TXT 13 075 bytes -CWSDPMI.EXE 20 217 bytes -DEMO.EXE 217 088 bytes -PCE.EXE 209 920 bytes -PCE.INI 741 bytes What is MagicEngine ? --------------------- This is an emulator for the PC Engine, a nice console made by NEC some years ago. If i remember correctly, this console was the first to have a CD-ROM drive. I think the first CD game was 'Street Fighter', the first of a great series ! At first, I wanted to emulate everything : the cards (AKA 'HuCards) and of course the CDs. This project started around the beginning of December 1996, and actually most HuCards are correctly emulated. I was happy and decided to begin working on the CD emulation. This looks very promising but I think it will take a months to have something good enough for a release... This is why I have decided to release the actual version of the emulator with only HuCard emulation - the rest should follow soon ! This program is released as shareware. This means that you will have to send me some bucks to have a fully functional version. The price is fixed at $35US, package included (see 'REGISTER.FRM' for details). The CD emulation will be released later as a free update. Two demo versions exist, DEMO.EXE the unplayable demo and PCE.EXE the playable demo. This last one has some limitations : - no sound - a time limit of 15 minutes - support for only 128KB and 256KB game images If you want to know more about my emulator, or if there is something you are unclear about, feel free to contact me : e-mail : dmichel@easynet.fr snail-mail: David Michel residence du Parc appt n4 86330 Moncontour France If you want more info on the PC Engine itself, make sure and see this web page : http://www.runet.edu/~cguirrer/turbo2.html What is emulated ? ------------------ Mostly everything. Only the noise sound channels are not correct and the stereo emulation is not yet implemented. Otherwise, there are still one or two gfx bugs, but nothing very annoying. Up to now, fourteen games don't work at all, but there are probably more : - Legendary Axe 1&2 (*) - Darius Plus [no weapon sprites] - Valkyrie No Densetsu - Volfiev - College Pro Baseball '89&'90 - TV Sports Football - USA Pro Basketball (*) - Naxat Open - Power Drift [freezes after the first race] - Metal Stoker - Super Volleyball (*) - Fighting Run [wrong sprite gfx] (*) These titles may work by pressing the TAB key when the game seems to be frozen (press it two times for 'Legendary Axe 2'). What machine is required ? -------------------------- A PC with a Pentium 100 and 16MB of EDO RAM is recommended, of course the faster the better, but even on a P100 you can run some games at full frame rate. Otherwise the minimum is a 486 and 8MB. The emulator runs fine under DOS and not that bad under Windows 95. Where can I get games ? ----------------------- Not from me ! I can't give you ROM images ! If you don't have ROMs, it would be better if you waited for me to finish the CD emulation. When this is finished, you will be able to put PC Engine CD's in your CD-ROM drive and play directly on your PC. How do I use the emulator ? --------------------------- PCE [options] rom-image where 'rom-image' is the name of a PC Engine game image. The emulator accept two formats: a raw image or an image with a 512 byte header (see below for header format). Several options are accepted : -1 ~ Change the format of the image. Two formats exist, normal images and splitted images. Usually all files of 384KB (and a few other like the 512KB version of 'Devil's Crush') use the splitted format, so if you have problems with one of those images, try this option -us/-usa ~ Inverse the bit order of the image, you can try this option if a game doesn't seem to work -nojoy ~ Disable the PC joypad -nosound ~ Disable the Sound Blaster Keyboard Functions ------------------ 1) Control Layout : ---------------- Cursor-keys ~ Direction Enter ~ Run Space ~ Select Ctrl ~ Button II Alt ~ Button I Z ~ Auto fire II X ~ Auto fire I 0 ~ Slow motion F5 ~ Enable/disable the PC joypad F6 ~ One player mode F7 ~ Two players mode, in this mode player one is controlled by the keyboard and player two by the joypad NOTE: In one player mode, if the joypad is enabled you can ----- use the keyboard and the joypad at the same time. This is useful if your joypad only has two buttons. 2) Frames Rate : ------------- MagicEngine is a pretty fast emulator, but on some old 486 it's too slow. To speed up the emulation you can control how many frames will be skipped. F1 ~ display all frames [1/1] F2 ~ skip 1 frame [1/2] F3 ~ skip 2 frames [1/3] F4 ~ skip 4 frames [1/5] NOTE: The F2 mode has a side effect. A lot of games use ---- sprite flickering to render special effects. You can't see that in this mode, and even worse, some sprites can completely disappear. In this case it is recommended to try another frame rate. 3) Sound control : --------------- F9 ~ enable/disable the sound + ~ increase volume - ~ decrease volume 4) Misc control : -------------- Tab ~ Magic key that can fix some games. You can try this when a game seems to be frozen (please note that it works only for a few games) Esc ~ Go to the menu Pause ~ Pause the game Prtscr ~ Make a snapshot of the current screen F11 ~ Enable/disable the info screen F12 ~ Enable/disable the scanlines video mode NOTE: When in pause mode, the 'prtscr' key is active, ---- otherwise press 'pause' again or 'esc' to quit this mode. The main menu ------------- RESET ~ Completely reset the game. You can also press 'run' and then 'select' to do a reset PLAY ~ Return to the game, same as pressing 'esc' again LOAD ~ This entry is active when a game archive is present in the same directory as PCE.EXE. for the moment the packer to make archives is not completely finished, i will release it later HELP ~ Display nice gfx pages showing the function of all the keys ABOUT ~ The copyright screen QUIT ~ Quit the emulator The INI file ------------ Normally you won't have to modify this file, but in some situations it can be useful. frame_rate=[1|2|3|4] -------------------- It's like keys F1 to F4, but it allows you to select your preferred frame rate at startup. delay=[999999|...] ------------------ Indicate the delay for slow motion (you can use any value). It is best to experiment and see which delay is suitable. joypad=[y|n] ------------ Enable or disable the PC joypad. If it's disabled by command line, you won't be able to use it later even if you press F5. button_1=[0|1|2|3] button_2=[0|1|2|3] button_3=[0|1|2|3] button_4=[0|1|2|3] ------------------ Determine how the two or four buttons of the PC joypad are mapped: 0 -> button I 1 -> button II 2 -> select 3 -> run scanlines=[0|1|2] ----------------- Select the type of the scanlines video mode. This mode tries to simulate a NTSC TV on your PC by inserting small black lines between screen lines. The software mode is safe for all monitors, but the hardware mode uses a special refresh rate of 97Hz. Newer monitors can handle this frequency, but some older monitors can't. If you are not sure, select the software mode '2' or no scanlines mode at all '0'. This option is activated by F12 key. 0 -> none 1 -> hardware 2 -> software sound=[y|n] ----------- Enable or disable sound output. Setting remains during entire emulation session. noise=[y|n] ----------- Enable or disable the emulation of the noise sound channel. info_screen=[y|n] ----------------- Enable the info screen at startup. This screen shows the actual volume for the six sound channels, the state of auto-fire keys, the selected frame rate and how many frames per second are displayed. Press F11 to toggle this screen on/off. path=[C:\GAMES.DAT|...] ----------------------- Tell the emulator to use a game archive. The packer to make archives is not yet finished - it's still being developed. I should be able to release it soon. When the emulator detects a valid archive, you can start it by typing 'PCE'. You don't have to specify a rom image on the command line. The header format ----------------- The header is 512 bytes long and uses a very simple format. The first byte indicates how many banks of size 8KB are present in the file and the second is usually set to '0' except when the game is 384KB in size. If this is the case, change this to '1'. The rest of the header is not yet used, but for future compatibility, it is recommended to fill this area with zeroes ('0'). Thanks ------ Without the help of some nice persons, MagicEngine wouldn't have been that great. I would like to thank them here, especially : Peter Kriegesmann Stuart Campbell Dave Shadoff and my brother Cedric Michel Special thanks to : - Robbie Diehl, for having corrected the spelling mistakes in the documentation. - Bt Garner, for providing me a homepage for MagicEngine. - DJ Delorie and all the persons behind DJGPP. - Shawn Hargreaves, some routines of his great ALLEGRO library saved me a lot of work. - Charles Sandmann, for allowing me to distribute CWSDPMI along with my emulator. If you are interested you can get the latest version of his program and the source code at this address : ftp.simtel.net:pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2misc/csdpmi*.zip Or if you want to contact him via regular mail: Charles W Sandmann (sandmann@clio.rice.edu) 1206 Braelinn, Sugar Land, TX 77479 David Michel ------------ dmichel@easynet.fr